- Not yet, though I'm planning to. Lack of a cohesive story in these kind of games don't bother me much, I like the gear design and I just hope the world is interesting to explore. I'm keeping myself from playing just to get my current game project in some playable state.

- This question is going to make me ramble, this is a drum I've been banging on for years about, the way they make AAA games needs to change. Rather than spending over ambitious budgets on the marketing and the presentation of the games, why can't they be a little more focused? The industry was mostly built on working with limitations at hand rather than over-inflating stuff more than they need to be to the point that the devs bite more than they can chew.

I said before in a different conversation as an example that I would like to see Capcom make a Resident Evil game in this present day with the budget of the first one. the closest that ever happened was Resident Evil Revelations, while I personally didn't like that game as much as anyone else did, it received way better reception than 6 ever did. It's how I felt about JRPGs for a while, I've enjoyed a lot of portable JRPGs that have been released on say DS or a PSP at a time people kept claiming the genre was "dead" on PS3 and 360.

I'm not saying AAA shouldn't exist, there is something nice about big games, but they need to go easy on making projects larger than they need to be. You can still have a reasonably budgeted AAA game without going overboard.

- I didn't enjoy GTA IV as much as many other people might have enjoyed it, but GTA hype is usually very contagious. I am holding off for the PC version, but don't think it will be a day 1 purchase.

- Enjoying Destiny here, but I'll probably get rid of it soon, the single player has been made slave to the MMO side of the equation, ending up with a campaign were you just do a bunch of things, and yet it feels like you're doing nothing. Also agree 100% with you guys on the Ghost voice actor just phoning it in, you can tell they want you to have that MC/Cortana relationship, but his completely flat delivery just doesn't sell it.

- I say Nah, if there is something the last time we switched consoles proved was that there is still a big contingent of people who will buy and use a PS2, the reasons for this are too many to list here, but the point is that there was still a market to satisfy during the early days of the PS3 and 360, it's the reason Persona 3 and 4 exist, so I say as long as they go to the platform with the right expectations, keep doing it.

- I thought I was gonna like GTA V more than I did, but to this date I haven't finished it and it's just sitting on my shelf collecting dust. so chances are if I play GTA this coming November it'll be that copy just to save money, unless I've gotten rid of it by then.

- Not playing Destiny. Obviously. I was surprised by a TV ad I saw for it the other night, though; the ad didn't show any game footage -- as game ads tend not to these days, which is stupid but an entirely separate discussion -- but made the game look like it had a lot more "personality" than I had been led to believe in the past. I still don't want to play it as I have little interest in Bungie's particular style of both gameplay and sci-fi, but the ad actually made me pay attention for the first time in ages. I see the fact that I really had no idea that the game had any personality and character about it as something of a failure of both the marketing machine and the press. Why didn't I know that? People have certainly been banging on about it for long enough.

- Perhaps, though I'm not really the person to ask, since most triple-A titles these days don't interest me. It would make sense for the biggest budget, most technically impressive games to be built for the most powerful hardware -- but it also makes sense for these business-minded publishers to go after the largest possible target market. That means catering to the people who are still using their PS3s and, to a lesser extent -- Microsoft's last-gen console seems to have died out a lot quicker than Sony's -- 360s. Those two goals oppose one another somewhat right now, since building a cross-gen game often necessitates holding back more than you would otherwise. I can't say it really bothers me one way or the other, though; as I say, after finding numerous triple-A titles over the last few years to be more than a little underwhelming, I've thrown in the towel with trying to keep up with them and instead retreated to my favourite niches.

- Have you not played GTA V already? If not, it's worth your time. The single player is good stuff -- plus the inclusion of Trevor makes underpants mayhem actually sort of justifiable -- and I feel the online still has a certain degree of potential, though I must confess to having never returned after the disastrous first week of service. If I know people who will be playing the PC version, I might give it another shot; if not, I've been there, done that. It's an experience worth having, though.

Here's a spoiler, Pete. Destiny has very little of the charm and personality of that trailer. It's a great trailer, and it conveys the visual experience of the game well. And if you're playing with some sort of RP Destiny players, it could be like that, I guess. But there's no classic rock to be found in the game.

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Since 2005, the Squadron of Shame has been embedded at the vanguard of underappreciated, obscure and noteworthy videogames. Crossing title after title off our collective Piles of Shame, the Squad continues its mission of exploring noteworthy games from the frontiers of civilized lands and reporting, discussing and podcasting in a spirit of cameraderie. Join us!

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Since 2005, the Squadron of Shame has been embedded at the vanguard of underappreciated, obscure and noteworthy videogames.